Righteous rage, impotent fury: Thomas Frank
returns to Kansas to hunt the last days of Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts

On eve of a possible GOP rout, Frank goes
home to rediscover the matter with Kansas and all American politics

PRAIRIE VILLAGE, KANSAS – One of the treasured vanities of my home
state of Kansas is the idea that, although we are the nation’s laggards
and late-comers in so many ways, there are other departments in which we
are way ahead of everyone else, savoring the fast-food treats you will
one day savor and debating the issues that you, too, will agonize over
before too long. It’s an understandable fantasy for a people who are
constantly reminded by the culture at large how lame and uncool they
are, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t coming true, for once, in 2014. This
week, Kansas may well be the one state that bucks all the national
political trends.

Here you have several prominent conservatives,
Republicans in one of the most Republican states in the country, running
in a year that looks to be a Republican sweep nationwide, and these
Kansas Republicans are either behind in the polls or barely keeping pace
with their Democratic opponents.
The men in question are:

* Governor Sam Brownback,
once a national leader of the GOP’s culture-war wing who came to Topeka
in 2010 and immediately used deep tax cuts to blast an enormous hole in
the state budget. The consequences,
which I have described in this space before, are almost impossible to
calculate—essentially, it’s austerity for the common folk so that the
state’s ruling class can take home even more. In the face of the
inevitable surge of public outrage, Brownback and his Super PAC friends
are currently running TV commercials around the clock. The strategy
seems to be to rescue the party’s most sanctimonious moral crusader by
drowning his opponent in a triple wave of slime, trashing the Democrat
for (a) wanting to raise taxes, (b) going to a strip club in the 1990s
(and, the commercials imply, voting perversely to allow strip clubs to sprout next door to churches), and (c) fraternizing with a judge who changed the sentences of some notorious local murderers from death to life without parole.

* Senator Pat Roberts,
a dutiful Republican soldier who got promoted when it was his turn to
get promoted and who has spent decades in Congress but accomplished surprisingly little. (His one legislative achievement, the Freedom to Farm Act of 1996, was a disaster for
family farmers.) It has been a comfortable arrangement, no doubt, but
Roberts settled in just a little too cozily. Like many other Midwestern
politicians before him, he seems to have decided he liked life in
Washington better than in his home town, and by 2014 he was seen only
rarely within the boring, rectilinear confines of the state he
represents. His official residence,
if you want to call it that, is a campaign donor’s house in Dodge City.
Making jokes about this, as Roberts used to do, drew down on him the
ire of the local tea party, and a right-wing challenger nearly beat him
in the Republican primary in August. Now an independent candidate, Greg
Orman, has assumed the anti-Washington mantle, and Pat Roberts’ carefree
days in the U.S. Senate may at last be nearing their end.

While
these fixtures of the Kansas political scene prepare to make their last
stand, there has been, hovering like a comet or some other astronomical
wonder, the spectacle of the Kansas City Royals, an ordinarily
undistinguished baseball team that nevertheless beat all comers this
year right up to Game Seven of the World Series—which they lost to the
San Francisco Giants by one run. Every politician in the region has
naturally sought to cloak themselves in the Royals’ glory, but what the
team’s epic run actually portends for our political future remains
obscure. Maybe it signifies that, with pluck and determination, the
local Democrats can pull off a historic upset. Maybe it is the ninth
inning of Game Seven for the Kansas GOP.

*

Of the various
Kansas races, it is the Pat Roberts–Greg Orman Senate matchup that has
captured the attention of poll-parsers and odds-makers from coast to
coast, because it presents them with an alluring double uncertainty: Not
only is the race itself too close to call, but if the independent Greg
Orman wins, we don’t know which party he will line up with. In fact, we
know remarkably little about Orman’s politics generally, because he
didn’t come up by conventional partisan means; he moved sideways into
public life after a successful career running a private equity firm.
Over the years he has had dalliances with both R’s and D’s, and today he
presents himself as an anti-politician, assailing (as he put it in a TV debate a few weeks ago) “partisans of both parties” who refuse to “roll up your sleeves [and] start solving problems.”

As
races come down to the wire all over the country, it seems ever more
possible that the fate of the Senate lies in the hands of this one
unknown figure, who could conceivably deliver control of that august
body to either side. The possibilities have beguiled the science-minded
men of the consensus, who for weeks have speculated back and forth on
this or that possible scenario, with the enigmatic Orman always hovering
over the outcome.

Which makes what I saw last Wednesday
particularly strange. Determined to find Greg Orman, this mystery man of
American politics and learn what I could about him, I drove to his
campaign office, in a strip mall on the outermost fringes of the Kansas
City metro area. There was a single person present amid the signs and
buttons and campaign detritus when I walked in, and she kindly informed
me that the candidate was appearing that day at a farm near Lawrence,
Kansas, where he would be announcing his agriculture policy.

That sounded good to me; I was on my way.

I
eventually found the place: a picturesque homestead with a 19th-century
house, a few gnarly cottonwoods, a perfect red barn, and a sweeping
view across the Kaw River valley to the buildings of the University of
Kansas in the distance. Two photographers and 20 or so ordinary citizens
were milling about; then the candidate himself arrived. To my
astonishment, every other person besides me and the photographers
proceeded to arrange themselves in formation behind Orman, many of them
holding Orman for Senate signs. Standing before this human backdrop, the
candidate spoke about the problems facing rural Kansas to an audience
consisting of, well, me.

Yes, reader, aside from the camera guys I
was the only member of the news media who had bothered to come and hear
the candidate’s plans for wind energy and broadband on the prairie. I
am sorry to say that I found this situation so completely disconcerting
that when Orman called for questions from the media, meaning, uh, me, I
was positively tongue-tied. I thought of all those guys back in D.C.
figuring the odds and parsing the polls and . . . I’m the only one here
to listen to what he actually has to say? This didn’t make any sense.

Eventually, I am happy to report, my brain rebooted and Orman and I had a good conversation.
I
asked him about the Obama administration’s failure to prosecute elite
bankers. “Obviously, for there to be justice in this world, it has to be
applied even-handedly,” he said. “So I think those sorts of things
obviously can’t go on.”

I told him I admired his stance on the
abortion issue, the way he was so forthrightly pro-choice in his debate
with Pat Roberts. Not many politicians in Kansas, I said, are willing to
take a stand like that anymore. “We’ve tried from the beginning to be
authentic,” he replied. “We’ve tried to answer any question that a
Kansas voter has of us.”

I asked him about what I believe is Farm Issue No. 1: monopoly—the
domination of farming by a handful of agribusiness middlemen. “Farmers
are obviously in the middle of a cost-price squeeze right now,” Orman
replied. “Part of it’s because, on the other side of it, they have very
few choices,” referring, presumably, to the extremely small number of
buyers a farmer can sell to. I remarked on how easy it would be for the
government to do something about this situation. His response: “It’s
amazing what we would be able to do [in Washington] if we had people
there representing Americans instead of representing special interests.”

I
went on to marvel at the amazing show of solidarity those special
interests were currently making around their old friend Pat Roberts, and
the irony of the wealthy Orman being class-baited by such a pawn of business interests.

Now,
I have always been leery of politicians who talk about partisanship as
though that is the main problem the country faces; the post-partisan
siren song has lured my ideological kin to their doom again and again.
(Cf., Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama.)
I am also suspicious of the heroic job-creator persona, which Orman has
donned to great effect in this campaign. Despite it all, however, it is
working. The outrage he has harnessed is real—real enough to elect an
almost complete unknown to the United States Senate on Tuesday.

*

For
a certain species of Republican, Kansas has long functioned the way the
“rotten boroughs” of 18th-century England worked for the people who
owned them. The GOP here sends to Congress whoever they choose to send,
no questions asked. They don’t even have to live here, really, just as
long as there’s that “R” after the candidate’s name.

The machine
is breaking down this year, and it’s not a pretty sight. Faced with a
challenger he can’t seem to slime down, longtime Senator Pat Roberts has
grown desperate. After all these years representing the rotten borough,
he finds that he has precious little to offer and few achievements to
boast about. Instead he lashes out in all directions. He assails his
opponent for being rich. He warns about the horrific threat posed by
Barack Obama. He urges upon us pure, naked panic. When asked about
Central American refugee children in a recent debate with Orman he actually said this: “We have ISIS. We have Ebola. We have to secure the border.”

But
all is not lost. Roberts has been able to call in an unlimited amount
of Republican supporting fire, parading all manner of right-wing
superstars through the state: Sarah Palin, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, all of
them here to tell us how highly they think of their dear buddy Pat and
maybe rescue Republican dreams to control the Senate.

On Friday,
it was New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s turn—his third tour of duty
for Roberts—and I got to gape at the Roberts caravan when it pulled up,
speakers blaring Kid Rock, into a vast and vacant field outside a NASCAR
racetrack in Kansas City, Kansas.

The side of Roberts’s bus was
painted with the hopeful but increasingly improbable slogan, “Kansas
Republican Party CLEAN SWEEP,” plus images of the wholesome, smiling
faces of all the local Republican candidates for office.

This time
the media was present, with video cameras and laminated ID badges,
their numbers bolstered by Republican operatives and office-seekers of
all sorts. Even so, there were barely 100 people present—probably
because it was windy and bitter cold.

The people from the bus
brought out a podium, a comfy-looking armchair, and—after a few
minutes—the beloved 91-year-old Republican soldier Bob Dole, who
occupied the chair while the others descended. Reader, it was a
Republican cornucopia. In addition to Dole and Roberts was the entire
state ticket: Governor Sam Brownback, Secretary of State Kris Kobach,
the local member of Congress, the attorney general, and the state’s
lieutenant governor, who clutched a broom throughout the proceedings.
There was “special guest” Chris Christie, wearing a jacket that read,
“Jersey Fresh.” There was governor Mike Pence of Indiana. Governor Bill
Haslam of Tennessee. Superlobbyist and former governor of Mississippi
Haley Barbour.

Pat Roberts himself had surprisingly little to say.
He was clearly obliged by the rules of this peculiar Republican game to
play the damsel in distress, showing nothing but gratitude to his
rescuers. When he spoke, we heard a touch of the old humor, or maybe
just resignation: “Bob and I are going to Florida on Wednesday.” We
heard a certain humility, too: “If you want to be a big flea, you have
to run with tall dogs,” he said, referencing his relationship to the
assembled Republican grandees. Only once did the beleaguered Senator
work himself up and try to convince the audience that “I’m going to win
this race!”

Each of the prominent visiting Republicans then
stepped up to the microphone and delivered their endorsement or related
some trademarked political profundity. The only one with any sort of
electricity was Sam Brownback, the maximum leader of the Kansas
conservative revolution, who spoke with passion and a slight Jimmy
Stewart twang. To Brownback’s credit, he did not retreat in the
slightest from the disaster he has inflicted on the state. Even though
there is a good chance that he will lose on Tuesday, he was still
depicting the election as a showdown between world-historical opposites:
“The Kansas way versus the Obama way, that’s what we’re portraying
here,” he said. “The Kansas way is lower taxes, stronger families,
getting the government off of your business.” Then there’s the other
side, the scary stuff: “The Obama way is higher taxes, more government
on your back, more regulation, and really stifling the American dream.
We don’t want that.”

Brownback delivered his lines with energy,
but listening to them I was struck by the extreme staleness—the utter
obsolescence—of this kind of thinking. It hasn’t changed since the
1970s, when Bob Dole was a fresh face in the United States Senate, even
as the world around it has crashed and burned. In order to believe this
kind of talk you must have had your eyes closed for most of the last
decade, while the almost completely unregulated mortgage-origination
industry wrote loans however they felt like and sold them however they
thought would best move the units. A little government on that business’s back, a little stifling of those banksters’ dreams, would have saved the world a hell of a lot of trouble.

While
I mulled that over, Roberts disappeared from the rally and Chris
Christie fielded the usual horse-race questions. Sam Brownback,
erstwhile champion of the magisterium of the religious right, shook my
hand on his way to the bus door. We had a brief conversation about his TV commercial blaming liberal judges for letting notorious murderers “off the hook.”

Governor Sam Brownback: “The Tom Franks?”TF: “That’s me. But no ‘s’ in Frank.”SB: “OK, OK.”TF:
“I saw your TV commercial about the Carr brothers. There’s a lot of
people who followed you for your stance on cultural issues, and I wonder
how a pro-lifer can be in favor of the death penalty.”SB: “What that ad’s about is about judges, and the judge’s role. That’s what that ad’s about.”TF: “It implied pretty strongly that you would have executed these guys.”BB:
“That ad is about judges. ’Cause what we talked about is the judges you
appoint. Which, that’s the governor’s role, is how, what you appoint.
And I’ve appointed a prosecutor to the Supreme Court, and he’s [meaning
his Democratic opponent] supported liberal judges, and one of the
judges, at their home, had a fundraiser. So, that’s what we were
pointing out in that ad.”

Brownback disappeared inside the bus.

*

The
Pat Roberts I saw last week looked like a hollow, defeated man . . .
who may yet prevail on Tuesday. The logic of the rotten borough may well
assert itself one more time, as Kansans march to the polls and
dutifully pull the lever the same way they always have. In fact, in what
will no doubt be hailed a great Republican wave election, it is
possible to discern a whole host of rotten boroughs all across America,
places where the media doesn’t really care about a candidate’s proposals
or the glaring contradictions in their highly moral views—where
billionaire TV commercials and sheer terror carry all before them. We
will elect a whole platoon of empty, defeated men to the Senate on
Tuesday, and then, two years from now, we will search out another
company of hollow heroes to champion our righteous rage—and do it again
and again, slowly sinking into our impotent fury.

Thomas Frank is a Salon politics and culture columnist.
His many books include "What's The Matter With Kansas," "Pity the
Billionaire" and "One Market Under God." He is the founding editor of
The Baffler magazine.

No comments:

LinkWithin

Put Guahu / About Me

This blog is dedicated to Chamorro issues, the use and revitalization of the Chamoru language and the decolonization of Guam. This blog also aims to inform people around the world about the history, culture and language and struggles of the Chamorro people, who are the indigenous islanders of Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Luta and Pagan in the Mariana Islands. Pues Haggannaihon ha', ya taitai na'ya, ya Si Yu'us Ma'ase para i finatto-mu.

Statcounter Code

The Revolution Will Not Be Haolified

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE HAOLIFIEDTinige’ as Guahu - 2003 (updated 2008)

You will not be able to ignore it che’lu * This time you will not be able to blame it all on Anghet * You will not be able to change channels * And watch Fear Factor, Rev TV of Salamat Po Guam because * The Revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised, nor will it be advertised * It will not be sponsored by the Good Guys at Moylan’s or the better guys at AK. * It will not be something easily explained by radio callers * Whether they be Positively Local, Definitively Settler, or Surprisingly Coconut * It will not be cornered by the Calvos and explained by Sabrina Salas * Matanane * After the story about the incoming B-52’s or 1000’s of Marines careening towards to Guam, and how we * should be economically energized and not terrorized. * Jon Anderson will have no TT anecdotes about it * and Chris Barnett won’t malafunkshun it because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised or editorialized * It will not be something canabilized with two inches here two inches there * Dubious headlines everywhere * Lee Weber will not edit it * Joe Murphy will not put it in his pipe and smoke it * Nor dream about it, or tell others the wonders and blunders of it. * There will be no letters to the editor quoting scriptures or denying its constitutionality * And there will be no American flag inserts saying these three colors just don’t run * As the revolution will not be editorialized

The revolution will not be televised or politicized * It will not play the same old gayu games * And promise you that same old talonan things. * The revolution will not wave at you as you drive by on Marine Drive * And seduce you with its hardworking eyes. * It will not be territorial or popular, and not encourage you with maolek blue. * The revolution will not put marang salaman po after its speeches to get more Filipino votes in the next election because the revolution will not be politicized

The revolution will not be televised, not be theorized * It will not be something GCC or UOG friendly. * There will be no books at Bestseller offering to help you lose something in 90 days * Or Rachel Ray helping you cook the revolution of your way. * Ron McNinch will not survey it * and will not poll people about their revolution of choice. * There will be no WASC review report demanding accountability demanding autonomy * And no beachcombing carpetbaggers will proclaim their own terminal authority * Over the histories, the laws, the thinking of those for whom they see nothing but corrupt and corrupting inferiority * The revolution will not be colonized

The revolution will not be televised, not be supersized. * The revolution will not be something you can buy at Ross, or get at blue light cost * It is not just red rice, kelaguan uhang, or popcorn with Tobacco sauce. * It doesn’t come with Coke and it doesn’t fit on a fiesta plate. * The revolution will not make you gof sinexy, cure your jafjaf, or make fragrant your fa’fa’ * The revolution will not force you to be where America’s empire begins * Or where Japan’s golf courses and Gerry Yingling’s credit card debt ends. * You won’t need a credit card, or be charged for the tin foil to cover your balutan * As the revolution will not be economized

The revolution will not be televised, blownback or militarized * There will be no more physical ordnance buried in people’s lands * And no more patrionizing propaganda buried in people’s minds * The revolution will not get you cheaper cases of chicken or increased commissary privileges. * It will not make freedomless flags feel more comfortable in your hands * Or make uniforms fit more snugly around your mind. * The revolution will not deny racism or exploitation * And not create histories about landfalls of destiny * But instead publicize the racism and evils of American hegemony. * The revolution will not be subsidized by construction contracts or the race of Senator Inouye or Congressman Burton * It will not be laid waste to by daisy cut budgets or Medicare spending limits * Instead it will be sustained by deep memories that refuse to die * The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised and will not polarize based on blood or color * It will not make your skin lighter * It will not make your skin darker * It will not test your blood the way Hitler or Uncle Sam would of done * It will not hate some and love others based on their time of naturalization * Or incept date of their compacts of free association. * But the revolution will help some find comfort, find strength, find power * In their connections to the land and to each other * Allow some to discover the sovereignty that can be found in solidarity * The revolution will take and remake this consciousness that doesn’t need to be televised * But does need to be revolutionized * The revolution will not be haolified * The revolution will not be haolified